With tensions high in Mideast, evangelical Christians tighten embrace of Israel

Servants to Christ is one of scores of evangelical Christian organizations working in Israel on a variety of charitable missions. And its presence is just one example of the increasingly tight embrace of the Jewish state by both the leadership of American evangelical churches and organizations and their grass-roots supporters.

Pro-Israel rhetoric â€” fueled in part by increasing tensions in the Middle East over Iran's nuclear program and the threat it might pose to the Jewish state â€” is a staple of many U.S. evangelical leaders' speeches and sermons....

Neil I have to agree with you. I was asking myself the same question? Do I leave all my convictions, doctrines etc aside just to welcome someone as a brother just because they have been persecuted?? I would say if it's a minor thing then maybe I would accept them as brothers but just because someone is persecuted does not give him the right to be way off on an important doctrine like the Catholics "miracle" of transunstanciation. Don't ask me how to spell that word lol

Jim Lincoln wrote:No, Neil, WWII started out as a police action...yawn...If you look at the Wikipedia article, Declaration of War by the United States Congress has been approving of police actions, or quasi-wars--as Wikipedia puts it--almost from the beginning of the United States.

What is not a tedious semi-accurate history is incorrect; post-hoc Congressional resolution (what the article distinguished as "authorized") is not the same as declaring war a priori, by due process.

No, Neil, WWII started out as a police action. In fact actions no doubt designed so that the US could declare war. We were giving old destroyers to Great Britain, being the arsenal of democracy, which tell bar manufacturing industry by the way, and then finally we cut off oil and other imports that Japan that was a necessity for it to survive--at least for its Army and Navy to survive at the level they were accustomed to. I'm certainly not angry with Roosevelt for setting up the circumstances where the US would declare war, but at the very best the US was a very belligerent neutral towards the axis powers as Spain was to the Allied ones.

If you look at the Wikipedia article, Declaration of War by the United States Congress has been approving of police actions, or quasi-wars--as Wikipedia puts it--almost from the beginning of the United States.

Since United States likes to do things with coalitions now, a formal declaration of war could involve other nations in a way due to interlocking treaties that they don't want to be involved in such a way the sleek and he knows coalitions.

Lighten up; this discussion over foreign policy has concerned war in America's context, not Europe's, so by "initial" I meant those actions which instigated formal American involvement (i.e., Pearl Harbor & Germany's declaration of war). I know perfectly well what happened in Sep. '39.

WW2 is irrelevant to my argument because it was a declared war (the last), & one in which we were the target of initial hostilities. Pleading the postwar status quo as normative is the Appeal to Tradition fallacy.

As usual you have to stick it to Bush, as if that's relevant. Try leaving partisan politics out of your arguments & they'll improve a little.

Neil, that was American policy and World War II, the Korean War, and even somewhat in the Vietnam War. If American troops are going to sacrifice their lives, it should be something more than a loyal or bananas. (Something that G. "Enron" Bush ignored in his version of the Banana_Wars )

The idea is directly related to our First Amendment, has it that much to Christianity? Perhaps not, but it has a whole lot to do with what were American ideals. Being a world power and enforcing Pax Americana has its responsibilities.

Neil wrote:" the United States had a duty to protect all religious groups (that included American missionaries)"Where is that in our Constitution? Or in Scripture?

It is effectively one of the duties of occupying military powers under international law which the US government signed and ratified.

The duties of the occupying power are spelled out primarily in the 1907 Hague Regulations (arts 42-56) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV, art. 27-34 and 47-78), as well as in certain provisions of Additional Protocol I and customary international humanitarian law.

" the United States had a duty to protect all religious groups (that included American missionaries)"

Where is that in our Constitution? Or in Scripture? Was Paul's Romans 13 magistrate also responsible for punishing the wicked in Han China, Parthia, and Mesoamerica? And if Israel persecutes Christians (laws against proselyzing), what should we do then, cut off their subsidy per Camp David?

I will leave SteveR to his radical ecumenism. This thread has taught me that one has to count either Jews or Catholics as brothers; no other possibilities allowed.

Neil wrote:Special Pleading. If you let Iraqi Catholics in, then why not American Catholics? What does their nationality have to do with anything?

I do not exclude US Catholics, nor any Saint of the Davidic Kingdom today or in the past who are witnesses to this thread.

Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

Hebrews 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The Five Solas of the Reformation are the five points that can be found in the Bible which defines a Christian.I know I never called these groups in the Middle East true Christians, but still especially when we were in Iraq or Afghanistan, the United States had a duty to protect all religious groups (that included American missionaries ) From harm. From all news accounts that I had seen, this one even of secondary importance. The Iraqi and Afghan constitutions should have had the equivalent of the First Amendment of the American Constitution in them, as that was removed or ignored after we left a country, that was not our fault then.

SteveR wrote:God acts alone to save his people. The responsibility for salvation does not rest on the sinner despite their good works or lack thereof. I see nothing in Pauls epistle to the Galatians that would alter Iraqi Christians receiving unmerited grace from my Lord(Sola Gratia). Perhaps your god, the god that persecutes the Church in palestine, would shun them?

And if Rome is overrun by the Mohammedan, the Vatican is sacked, and the Pope is martyred, will that event suddenly make their brand of 1.3 billion sacerdotalists evangelical?

SteveR wrote:The responsibility for salvation does not rest on the sinner despite their good works or lack thereof. I see nothing in Pauls epistle to the Galatians that would alter Iraqi Christians receiving unmerited grace from my Lord(Sola Gratia).

Special Pleading. If you let Iraqi Catholics in, then why not American Catholics? What does their nationality have to do with anything?

Neil wrote:Then the Bible contradicts itself, since you're suggesting justification is off the table so far as saving faith is concerned. All you have to do is believe certain facts about Christ's person, which even devils can do.By your simplistic understanding of 1 John 4, Paul was just as mean & divisive as I am, since his Epistle to the Galatians denounces those who, while being nominally Christians, added works of the Law to the Gospel, just as sacerdotal churches do. How can Paul say this if all one has to believe is that Jesus is God incarnate?

God acts alone to save his people. The responsibility for salvation does not rest on the sinner despite their good works or lack thereof. I see nothing in Pauls epistle to the Galatians that would alter Iraqi Christians receiving unmerited grace from my Lord(Sola Gratia). Perhaps your god, the god that persecutes the Church in palestine, would shun them?